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Leadership Characteristic
Replace the Leadership characteristic of all models as follows:

Leadership 9-10 becomes LD2+.

Leadership 8 becomes LD3+.

Leadership 7 becomes LD4+.

Leadership 6 becomes LD5+.

Leadership 5 becomes LD6+.

Leadership 4 (or less) becomes LD7+.

Morale Phase
Replace entirely with the following:

In the Morale phase, starting with the player whose turn it is, players must take Morale tests for units from their army that have had models slain during the turn. Each time a unit makes a Morale test, roll a dice. If the roll is equal to or greater than the highest Leadership characteristic in the unit, then it passes the Morale test. If not, it fails, and one model in the unit is removed from play, lost to the confusion of battle. Whether these models deserted and fled, became cut off from their unit, got trapped under rubble, or were distracted by looting, they take no further part in the battle. You choose which model is lost from your units.

The bigger a unit is, the more easily confusion can spread through the ranks. Subtract 1 from the Morale test if the unit has half (or less) its starting number of models. If a unit that includes more than 5 models fails a Morale test, it loses D3 models instead of one. A unit that includes more than 10 models instead loses D6 models when it fails a Morale test.

The frenzy of close quarters combat creates a fog of chaos and bloodlust. Add 1 to a Morale test if the unit successfully charged this turn, or subtract 1 if the unit was successfully charged this turn.

Other Morale Rules

And They Shall Know No Fear and other "re-roll failed Morale tests" rules remain the same.

Synapse and other "automatically pass Morale tests" rules remain the same.

Aura of Discipline and other "share Leadership" rules remain the same.

Ultramarines: Codex Discipline and other "+1 Leadership" rules become "add 1 to Morale tests for this unit". Existing rules that add to/subtract from Morale tests are inverted.

b]Fearsome Visage[/b] and other "-1 Leadership" rules become "Enemy units within 6" of this unit subtract 1 from all Morale tests."

Night Lords: Terror Tactics becomes "Subtract 1 from Morale tests made by enemy units within 6" of a unit with this trait. Enemy units that fail a Morale test with a roll of 1 lose an additional model for each unit with this trait within 6" (maximum 3)."

Iyanden: Stoic Endurance and other "lose no more than 1 model" rules remain the same, but add "this unit does not suffer the penalty to Morale tests for having half (or less) its starting number of models."

Summary Execution (and similar rules, such as Breakin' Heads) becomes "You can re-roll failed Morale tests for friendly ASTRA MILITARUM units within 6" of this model. If you do so and the unit succeeds, the unit suffers one mortal wound."

Word Bearers: Profane Zeal gains "this unit does not suffer the penalty to Morale tests for having half (or less) its starting number of models".

Daemonic Icon becomes "If you roll an unmodified 6 when taking a Morale test for a unit with any Daemonic Icons, reality blinks and the daemonic horde is bolstered. The Morale test is passed, and one slain model is instead returned to the unit. If the unit contains more than 5 models, D3 slain models are returned to the unit. If the unit contains more than 10 models, it regains D6 slain models."

Bonding Knife Ritual becomes "You can re-roll Morale test rolls of 1 for this unit."

Mob Rule becomes "This unit loses D3 models on a failed Morale test regardless of its current size".

**********

Setting aside the actual results of 8e's Morale system for a moment – Morale in 8e is just plain weird. There is no other roll in the game that adds modifiers this big, compares it to a value this big, or cares by how much you "fail". Hits, wounds, and saves are entirely binary – you hit or you miss, you wound or you don't, you save or you die, it doesn't matter by how much you succeed or fail. Morale is the only roll in the game – with the sole exception of psychic rolls, which can potentially trigger Perils – that has the possibility to get worse if you re-roll a failure.

There's also no other roll in the game where rolling high is bad. You want to roll high to hit, wound, save, damage, charge, advance, cast powers, use Stratagems, go first, roll-off... everything! In every situation, you want a 6 and you don't want a 1. Every situation except Morale tests. It's unique. Which also makes it hard for other mechanics to interact with, because every assumption becomes opposite day when it hits Morale tests.

This new version keeps all the same principles, but fixes the weird stuff, is much more combat-friendly, and is much simpler. It's now a roll just like any other. It doesn't double kills so straightforwardly, reward focus fire, or require keeping track of deaths – you just lose models based on the actual, current size of your unit. It also means you can start using Leadership for other mechanics, like "enemy unit must make a Morale test to charge you" or bring back target priority (below).

Thoughts?

Target Priority
When you choose to shoot at a unit other than the closest enemy unit you could target in the Shooting phase, the shooting unit must pass a Priority test. Roll a dice, and if the result is equal to or greater than the highest Leadership characteristic in the unit, it passes the Priority test and can target that unit. If not, it fails and must instead target the closest enemy unit (or not shoot at all). You automatically fail Priority tests to target enemy CHARACTERS that are not the closest enemy unit, even if you cannot target other enemy units. You do not need to pass a Priority test to target an enemy unit with a Wounds characteristic of 10 or more.

Nvm

 Lance845 wrote:
Nvm

Was just about to respond, but yeah – Leadership goes the way of Ballistic Skill and Weapon Skill. It ranges from 2+ to 6+, with modifiers, with each basic pip roughly mapping to Ld9 (2+), 8 (3+), 7 (4+), 6 (5+), and 5 (6+).

Why are bigger units punished harder?

Not Online!!! wrote:
Why are bigger units punished harder?

That mechanic exists mainly to simulate the existing dynamic of bigger units being punished harder by Morale. Now, I don't know that I necessarily agree with that dynamic, but this homebrew is aimed less at changing the way Morale affects the game, and more at simplifying it and opening up the Leadership characteristic to new applications.

**********

To clarify what I mean: 8e's Leadership rules exist to straightforwardly increase the game's lethality, thereby speeding up play. Each turn, you roll a D6 against your Leadership, adding the number of models your unit lost that turn and losing extra models equal to the difference... so in other words, past a certain threshold – namely, [Ld-D6] – every kill is doubled. Every kill is +1 to the roll, and every +1 to the roll is a dead model. Leadership only exists to create that threshold of kills that don't get doubled – models with Leadership 8 and models with Leadership 7 engage with Morale in the exact same way, but the former can endure one extra death each turn before the bodies start multiplying.

In effect, for 8e you could:

Remove the Leadership characteristic entirely.

Remove the whole Morale Phase entirely.

Add the rule: "if a unit loses three models, it becomes broken for the rest of the turn. Every time a model from a broken unit is killed, an additional model in the unit flees and is also removed".

Give units that used to have higher Leadership a rule that makes them harder to break. e.g. And They Shall Know No Fear becomes "when a unit with this ability loses an extra model due to being broken, roll a dice. On a 4+, that model does not flee."

It's really that basic.

Whatever the specifics of its execution, 8e's style of Morale obviously encourages focused fire. Firstly, because you need to meet that Morale threshold to start doubling, and secondly, because once you do meet that threshold, the unit takes double deaths.
It also greatly discourages hordes – low numbers of units with high numbers of models. Units in 8e range between 1-30 models, and Leadership values for Troops are almost all at 7 or 8 – the notable exceptions are Necrons (10), Kroot and Cultists (6), and un-Synapse'd Tyranids (5). This means that the average Morale threshold – the average point after which you start doubling kills – is 4. In other words, most units of 5 models or less are borderline immune to Morale. By the time you hit the threshold, the unit's dead anyway. By contrast, a large unit of, say, Guardians (Ld7) can take about 4 dead models in a turn... and then it starts eating double kills. If you kill 5 Guardians in a turn (the average for a FRFSRF unit of Imperial Guard Infantry), on average you've "actually" killed 7. If you kill 10 Guardians in a turn, on average you've "actually" killed 17. If you kill 12 Guardians, you'll wipe out the whole unit on a Morale roll of 4+.

In theory, this is a trade-off for large units being easier to buff, being easier to "activate" in combat, and taking fewer slots in a Detachment. In practice, Fall Back means that relatively few units are going to be in combat without charging or being charged, large unit sizes are harder to get completely into the melee range of 1", most non-Stratagem buffs are free multi-unit aoe auras instead of Order-style "pick a unit within range" abilities, and occupying extra Troops slots just gives you more CP. This is why we've started seeing more Age Of Sigmar-style "horde" rules like Green Tide, although the "horde discount" hasn't made its way over to 40k yet (and I kind of hope it doesn't, at least not directly, for simplicity's sake), and nor has the "horde boost" to Leadership (which everyone seems to forget).

As part of the simplification process, this version loses the extra benefits of focus fire, but emulates the anti-horde aspect by making additional models flee if you fail on a large unit. That said, it's not a huge increase; a squad of 5 or less loses 1 model on a failure, a squad of 10 or less loses D3 (~2), and a squad of more than 10 loses D6 (~3.5). In general, 1 model from squads of 5 or less won't be too different in value than 3.5 models from squads of 11+. The exception is large squads that have already been whittled down earlier in the fight, hence the half-unit-strength penalty to actually passing the Morale test: those Guardians I mentioned earlier will lose an average of 1.75 models on every Morale test (D6 on 4+) regardless of how many casualties they took that turn. Once they fall below 10 models, they'd only lose ~1 model per Morale test (D3 on a 4+)... but because they're below half-strength, they're making that test on 5+, bumping the average back up to 1.66.

Morale should be encouraging larger (or at least above minimum size) units rather than punishing them imo.

Jbz` wrote:
Morale should be encouraging larger (or at least above minimum size) units rather than punishing them imo.

I agree with this sentiment.

There are already lots of incentives to MSU. We need to not punish people who build up units instead.

I like the simplification of the system but I too disagree with the penalization.